You’d be forgiven for losing track of how many survival games have come out in the last decade or so, and though I personally enjoy many of them myself, it’s exciting to see a new one come along and dramatically overhaul what a survival game looks like, mechanically speaking. In a crowded genre, Hello Sunshine stands out. Yes, it’s a survival game with many of the mechanics you’d expect, but it doesn’t look quite like any others, thanks to its one (literally) huge twist.
That twist is the gigantic robot companion you have by your side. The building-sized automaton walks almost ceaselessly toward a destination, and it’s your mission to use its shadow to stay safe from the scorching sun, while strategically dashing into landmarks to quickly loot supplies, all while you dodge other, smaller bots along the way.
Hello Sunshine is set in a post-apocalyptic world full of antagonistic robots, and if you’re to survive, you’ll need to scavenge food, water, and materials to build tools and weapons–all while avoiding the unforgiving rays of the sun. But rather than settle down and build a base for yourself and your robo-pal, you’re almost always on the move. It’s a much more nomadic experience than, say, Valheim or Minecraft.
Using a full day/night cycle, Hello Sunshine will dynamically adjust your mission parameters as each day progresses. Early in the morning, the abusive sun is in a different point in the sky than it’ll be later in the evening, causing you to mindfully stay behind, ahead of, or perhaps to one side of the giant robot.
During these daytime hours, the pacing is made to feel hurried. You can head out of the safe shadow, but not for long, as the robot is forever moving onward, with or without you. How long do you spend in a dilapidated building seeking crafting and healing supplies, knowing that you’ll need to sprint back through the desert to reunite with your big metal security blanket? You can survive for a short moment in the sun, but it’s not long before it starts chipping away at your health. Therefore, you don’t want to let the robot get so far ahead that you lose track of it, but sometimes the allure of rare loot or vital health items keeps you two dangerously apart.
Even the best-laid plans can go awry when those smaller, antagonistic bots show up to slow you down, or push you out of the shadows when you’re not careful and well-prepared. Weather events such as sandstorms can also dynamically disrupt your journey, severely limiting your ability to keep your robot in view, despite its gargantuan stature.
At the end of each day you survive, you’ll reach a service station, where the robot finally rests–charges, really–and allows you to do the same overnight. It’s here that you’ll craft items, recycling scraps you’ve amassed so far to make new clothing, flashlights, and weapons, among other things.
As much as you can focus on yourself, you can also repair and upgrade the robot. This was my favorite part of the hands-off demo I was part of: seeing how you’ll bond with the robot, which at first seems to pay you no mind whatsoever, seemingly unaware of your existence. But as you tend to it, it’ll start to take an interest in you. Based on some thematic hints the creators at red Thread Games mentioned in my preview (which I won’t spoil here because they joked that maybe they’d said too much already), I expect your bond with your giant companion to grow quite close over the game’s hours, which leaves me wondering how much the story will later test that same bond. But these are the emotional beats that would bring the experience all together for me, so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next, even if it hurts.
The team behind the game teased that there is a lot more to the story and world you’ll explore, including multiple biomes, so it won’t all be set i nthe desert, as well as online and split-screen co-op elements they weren’t ready to talk about in great detail. What they didn’t mention yet is a release date, though you can sign up for the free, upcoming Hello Sunshine playtest.